It can be difficult to communicate using an earpiece or earphone device in the presence of high-level background sounds. In many earpiece designs a transducer is placed near the ear canal opening. Ambient sound from the surrounding environment enters the ear canal with the audio content from the transducer. Environmental sounds such as traffic, construction, and nearby conversations can degrade the quality of the audio content.
Although audio processing technologies can adequately suppress noise, the earpiece is generally sound agnostic and cannot differentiate sounds. Thus, one method to prevent ambient sound from entering the ear is to seal or provide an acoustic barrier at the opening of the ear canal. Sealing minimizes ambient sound leakage into the ear canal, and under the correct conditions can provide a level of noise suppression under high background noise conditions. Certain types of acoustic software (e.g., communication in a noisy environment via an ear canal microphone) may require some minimum noise isolation from the ambient sound to provide adequate performance to the user. Additionally, user conditions may change substantially during the operation of the earpiece, and in some circumstances, the earpiece may become misaligned or may be fit incorrectly such that it is not sealed correctly. A method of seal detection is needed to optimize performance.